Full OS Backup Using Ghost - Free Online Tutorial

Disk images, in computing, are computer files containing the contents and structure of a disk volume or an entire data storage device, such as a hard disk drive, tape drive, floppy disk, optical disc or USB flash drive. A disk image is usually made by creating a sector-by-sector copy of the source medium, thereby perfectly replicating the structure and contents of a storage device independent of the file system. Depending on the disk image format, a disk image may span one or more computer files.

Disk image file formats may be open standards, such as the ISO image format for optical disc images, or proprietary to particular software applications. As disk images contain the contents of entire disks, they can be huge. Some disk imaging utilities are filesystem-aware and can omit copying unused space from the source media, or compress the disk they represent to reduce storage requirements. Disk images are used heavily for duplication of optical media including DVDs, Blu-ray disks, etc. It is also used to make perfect clones of hard disks.

Full OS Backup using Norton Ghost:

Norton Ghost is a Software which can backup your entire OS to a backup file and you can restore it later if you encounter any issue on your system or if you wish to go back to your previous configuration.

To backup your currently running OS using Norton Ghost, insert Norton Ghost CD on your CD ROM Drive (or you can use USB to boot from) and then select CD ROM/USB as your first boot device.

Then it will popup to press any key to boot from CD/USB, now press any key to boot Norton Ghost. Then select Backup My Computer option to backup your current OS. It will guide you to the backup wizard.

 

Then select the partitions to backup. You must be sure that you are selecting all the mandatory partitions needed to boot your computer properly. This includes an Active Partition and the Partition which contains OS files on your disk.

Then select a destination location for the backup file to be saved. It should not be equal to the Partition which you are backing up.

 

Then you will be prompted to select the compression level at which the backup file is to be compressed. Selecting higher compression level will reduce backup file size, but will take more time than the usual.

There will be some advanced options if you click the Advanced Button. Here you can select to encrypt your backup with a password to protect the data on it from theft and you can also select to split the file into multiple parts to be able to move them easily. After clicking finish, the backup process will start...

Restoring Back the Backed Up OS Image:

To restore the backup image that you have backed up recently from your machine. Again you need to insert the Norton Ghost CD/USB and then you have to boot from it as said above. Then go to the Recover My Computer option.

Then browse and select the backup file that you have saved in the previous step, and then click next.

Then it will show you the information about the backup and it will automatically decide where (which partition) to restore the backup. But you can choose it if you click the edit button. You must be sure to choose the partitions correctly.

  

Then click next and finish to complete the operation. Then it will start to restore the data and it will take a few minutes depending upon the backup size and the system speed.